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I will be exhibiting work selected by Robert Hubany, curator of Leclerc Contemporary Gallery, in the Gallery Annex from 9/18 – 11/9. Leclerc Contemporary is in Norwalk, CT (40 minutes from NYC) and is part of the spacious and upscale Fairfield Co. Antique and Design Center – http://www.fairfieldantiqueanddesign.com. If you are in the area, there is a reception for multiple artists at the Leclerc 9/25, 6-8PM.

I am fortunate again to exhibit with old friends and make some new ones as part of Seeing Things: 7 Photographers at the Dehn Gallery, MCC on Main in Manchester, CT (https://www.manchestercc.edu/mcc-on-main/). I am in the good company of Robert Calafiore, Rebecca Clark, Sean Kernan, Kevin Van Aelst, Susan Whitehouse and Kimberly Witham. Rebecca is my wife. Susan is a former student. Bob (http://robertcalafiore.com) is the Assistant Dean of the Hartford Art School and Sean lives in CT (and teaches at the Maine Media Workshops and other places – http://www.seankernan.com). Kevin and Kimberly are fascinating photographers, smart and fun to talk to. Here’s a clip from the gallery that features lots of Rebecca’s iPhone + encaustic work in the gallery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L29rcAHwwlw.

I have 27 photos on exhibit at the Kerri Gallery in Willimantic through August 23. The Kerri Art Studio and Gallery is a gem in Willimantic. The gallery crew is so friendly it’s worth stopping by just to chat. And Kerri Quirk – the gallery’s namesake – is an artist with a powerful story - http://www.kerriquirk.com. Wed & Fri- 10-2, 3-6; Thurs – 10-2, 5-8; Sat – 11-3

Prague is an outdoor museum well worth the price of admission even when you consider the cost of airfare. Prague was largely spared the bombs of WWII and so has eight centuries more or less of well-preserved architectural history. Historic Prague is sprawling and the architectural gems are not concentrated in one area. And some of the more famous examples – the Baroque St. Nicholas Cathedral in Malá Strana or the Art Nouveau Municipal House in Old Town – are a bit underwhelming when you consider there is something impressive around every corner… somebody’s 400-year-old house and garden, the finely crafted facades of turn-of-the-century apartment buildings, storefronts and offices, David Černý’s outrageous sculpture. We spent six nights in Prague doing the usual tourist trail, which included the castle complex, St Vitus, Loreta, St Nicholas, Strahov Monastery (which had a cabinet of curiosities and made its own beer), Municipal House, Jewish Quarter/Pinkas and the Spanish Synagogues & Old Cemetery, Museum of Communism, Mucha Museum, Petrin Hill, Old Town, Kampa etc. We saw the Tim Burton retrospective, a show by the Czech photographer František Dostál and visited the Lobkowicz Palace and learned the story of William Lobkowicz (born and raised in the US) and how he was able to reclaim his family’s twelve castles after the Velvet Revolution. We stayed at a delightful eight-room hotel called U Zeleného hroznu in Malá Strana (built in the 17th century and decked out with the opera singer Ema Destinnova’s salon and bedroom furniture). We then travelled to Český Krumlov south of Prague (very close to Austria and Germany) for two nights. We rented an “apartment” in Český Krumlov at the five–suite Pension Athanor – all the modern amenities including a sauna in a building built before 1569. Český Krumlov, like Prague, was built on the Vltava River and like Prague, it has a big-ass castle, a dominant cathedral called St Vitus and cobblestone streets. We toured the castle from end to end, from the bear pit to the formal French & English gardens, from the top (bell tower with an expansive view) to the bottom – the wooden gears/set changing machinery under the stage of a Baroque theater and the surreal sculpture of Miroslav Páral on exhibit in a dank, dark, dirt-floor castle cellar complex. We saw a show of Jan Saudek’s work and visited the Museum Fotoatelier Seidel, the home and studio of a turn of the century photographer. We ate trdelnik and drank Eggenberg and Becherovka. We did not use the sauna.

Architecture & Adornment, Kaprova Street Stare Mesto Old Town Prague

U Storch House at Staromestske Namesti – Old Town

Architecture & Adornment, Prague

Architecture & Adornment, Prague

Architecture & Adornment, Prague

Taken on Charles Bridge, of buildings in Old Town

Loreta (or Loreto) is a large complex of buildings, and a tourist and pilgrimage destination in Hradčany, the castle district. The construction started in 1626 – designed by an Italian architect (which is why it looks so… Italian).

Artist, writer, naturalist, angler James Prosek will speak about his work at Manchester Community College in the Great Path Community Commons on April 8 at 3 PM. Prosek is visiting MCC as part of the Dehn Foundation Visiting Artist Series (which I coordinate) and his work is currently on exhibit at the New Britain Museum of American Art. James Prosek made his authorial debut at nineteen years of age while an undergraduate at Yale University with Trout: an Illustrated History, which featured seventy of his watercolor paintings. He has since published numerous books, including Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso (2010), a New York Times Book Review editor’s choice, and the subject of a documentary for the PBS series “Nature” that aired in 2013. His most recent book Ocean Fishes (2012) is a collection of paintings of 35 Atlantic fish, all of which were painted life size. Prosek has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the seventeenth-century author of The Complete Angler. He co-founded a conservation initiative called World Trout in 2004 with Yvon Chouinard, the owner of Patagonia clothing company, which raises money for coldwater habitat conservation through the sale of T-shirts featuring trout paintings. He has also written a novel and recorded three CDs with his group The Troutband. I designed the packaging for their last CD, Monkey’s Wedding.

Of, By & For – at Artspace, 555 Asylum Ave, Hartford. Four Mansfield CT photographers exhibit work that explores the intersection of family and art. Organized by Mark Mirko, a photojournalist for the Hartford Courant, the show also features the work of Greg Miller, a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Rebecca Clark’s cyanotype prints and work from my 2003-2008 series “Boys’ Life.” Reception 2/15 at 5 PM.

I just curated my first show. It’s called New Construction: Six Photographers, opening reception 1/18, 5 PM at the Windsor Art Center (off Main St. in Windsor, CT). I think it will be an interesting show. Extra credit if you come to the opening. The show includes Olivia Parker, who published her first monograph of photographic still life in 1978; Kimberly Witham, a certified taxidermist, who regularly photographs road kill; Kevin Van Aelst, an experienced editorial photographer known for his witty constructions; Kim Kauffman who uses a flatbed scanner instead of a camera; and Rebecca Clark, who photographs with an iPhone and seals her images with a wax coating.

Spent Friday at Dublin School in NH – grades 9-12. Gave an 8 AM talk to entire student body – message: nothing comes from nowhere, creativity is just a re-mix or mash-up (thanks AK) and “If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism, if you steal from many, it’s research.” (Wilson Mizner). http://www.dublinschool.org/the-putnam-gallery/